Staying Clean and Sober in The Everyday World

 We will continue with our list concerning our sexual forays.  If you missed Sunday’s post then you would need to go back and start there.  Here is the rest of the list for the other 3 columns.

Column 3 (Did we unjustifyably arouse jealousy, suspision or bitterness)

1. Jealousy:

• Of her, him, family, friends, co-workers, etc.
• How did I cause jealousy (tricking, flirting, also see Suspicion below)?

     2.  Suspicion:

• Of her, him, family, friends, co-workers, etc.
• How did I cause suspicion (lying, tricking, flirting, coming home late etc.)?

     3.  Bitterness:

• About her, him, family, friends, co-workers, etc.
• About me (guilt, shame)
• How did I cause bitterness?

Column 4 (Where was I at fault?)

• Was I selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, or fearful, thoughtless, uncaring?

Column 5 (What should I have done instead?)

• Not used the person
• Respected him/her
• Tried to be a friend
• Been candid and open
• Cared about him/her
• Treated him/her as I would have wanted to be treated

This exercise is not done over night.  You will need to go back through your past and look at ALL of your sexual partners (or at least as many as you can remember).  This is not easy but I promise the results are rewarding.  As a result of completing this exercise you will know your mistakes and be able to avoid many of them in the future which will lead you to a healthy and satisfying relationship.  I encourage you to take the time and energy required to complete this.

 We are going to look deeply into our sexual history and how we conducted ourselves.    In a detailed 4th step we must take a look at every aspect of our life and how it affected our addiction or other areas of our life to keep us trapped in our addiction.   This will require us to be honest and fearless in our look into our past sexual forays. Continue Reading »

I hope you are keeping up with these.  This is our road to recovery and the more detailed we can be on this 4th Step the better we will do at relapse prevention.  In order to stay clean and sober we must know how we got into this mess.  that requires a detailed look at our selves.  While this is not a comfortable step it is a necessary one.

Today we will begin to check into our fears.  Start by printing the list below.  after you have printed it you will need to mark each one that applies to you in any way.  You may add any that I have accidentally left out.  Remember to be thorough.

FEAR

• Abandonment     
• Aging
• Anger                 
• Authority figures
• Being alone
• Being deceived  
• Being found out being myself                      
• Change
• Compliments      
• Confrontation     
• Creditors
• Death                  
• Denial, my          
• Disapproval
• Disease              
• Divorce              
• Embarrassment
• Employment       
• Facing myself     
• Failure
• Fear                    
• Feelings              
• Financial insecurity
• Flying                 
• Fourth and fifth steps                                  
• Future, the
• Getting fat of thin
• God                    
• Going home
• Going out on a “whim”                               
• Having children  
• Homelessness
• Homosexuality   
• Honesty              
• Humiliation
• Hurting others     
• I’m a fraud and others will find out            
• Incarceration
• Intimacy              
• IRS, the              
• Letting go
• Living                 
• Loneliness          
• Losing hope
• Love                   
• Mediocrity         
• Money
• Needing anyone  
• Not being good enough                               
• Not being happy
• Not being liked   
• Not being perfect
• People (specify who)
• Police, the          
• Poverty               
• Procrastination
• Rape                   
• Rejection            
• Relationships
• Resentments, my 
• Responsibility    
• Risks
• Saying that I can’t do something                  
• Sex                     
• Sponsor, my
• Success              
• Unemployment    
• Unknown, the
• Violence             
• Work                  

Complaining Is Not Always a Character Flaw

 Waiter, there’s a hair in my salad!

We have been working so hard that I just had to throw in some humor.  I know you will forgive me.

OK So back to work now.

Today we will begin to list our resentments.

You will need paper and pen.

Divide your paper into 4 columns.

Title the columns as listed below.

1. I’m Resentful at:     John Doe
2. The Cause:    He stole my money
3. This Affects My:    self esteem, serenity
4. My Mistakes in this:    I was dishonest with him

Continue in this manner until you have listed every person you can think of that you are resentful at.  This list would include family, friends, co-workers, bosses, doctors, lawyers, counselors, etc.  If you have any resentment toward anyone it needs to be listed here and detailed out so you have something to refer back to.

Really get serious and be honest with yourself in this matter as in all the ones we have done up to today.   You will not be sharing this list with anyone on it so do not be afraid to be honest.  If you can not be honest with yourself you will not succeed in your recovery.

I will be back tomorrow with the next part of our detailed 4th Step.

Because of the intense nature of what we are doing here I wanted to give you a few days to complete the assignment.  Now we will move on to some more things that must be done.

We need to get into our resentments.  Today I will list some of the areas that we tend to hold resentments and then tomorrow we will do some work with these areas. Continue Reading »